An Open Letter to Steve Spanier – You Are Failing on the OGC Issue
Steve,
I believe in your governance style, as expressed in your campaign platform, but you are failing to live up to your campaign promises of civility, fiscal responsibility and transparency. I have continued to be hopeful that your leadership would turn things around, making this a more civil place and finding middle ground for controversial issues. Having read your Setting Expectations Email to the community, I am now much less hopeful, and I’ll tell you why.
The OGC has controlled the narrative since last fall at their first “Town Hall” meeting. Since taking office, the new OVA Board has allowed this to continue, by giving OGC free space in the Oakmont News for propaganda pieces, with no opposition viewpoint offered:
- April 1 – OGC Maintains Community Storm Drains and Waterways
- May 1 – Bullish Signs for the Golf Industry
- May 15 – OGC Spends Over $100k on Recent Community Waterway Maintenance Projects
- June 1 – Golf Industry Contributes $84 Billion to U.S. Economy, Up 22% Since 2011
Thank you for giving me credit for coming up with the format for tonight’s meeting, but the format was never intended to allow OGC to continue to control the narrative. It was intended to force them to either answer hard questions or openly refuse to do so. If they are allowed to “choose to answer whichever questions and address whichever suggested alternatives they wish to address”, then they will continue to control the narrative. Furthermore, if “providing detailed OGC financial information to all OVA residents is simply not ever going to happen”, then there is not much point in involving the OVA membership, because we will never have the information required to make a rational judgement. You may as well just close the doors and make a backroom deal with OGC to finance them with a dues increase.
I will back off from that slightly, based on your use of the word “detailed”. We don’t need to know who owns what percentage of the OGC or how much OGC pays for a marketing deal with a winery, but we do need to know the answers to financial questions such as the ones I sent into the process. If you have given the “independent third party moderator” instructions to exclude financial questions, or to allow OGC to choose which questions to answer, then you have violated the central intent of my proposal, which was to force the narrative to follow OVA members’ needs for information, not OGC’s need to promote a deal.
As for your justification for allowing them to keep all financial details secret, it shows that your long membership in the OGC has caused you to accept their point of view – you have a substantial conflict of interest, even if it is unconscious. It may be true that revealing their finances could impact their marketing efforts relative to other golf clubs, but that is the price to pay when you ask for major outside financing. You don’t go to a bank to borrow money, refuse to fill out key parts of the loan application, and expect to get a loan. You don’t go to a foundation applying for a grant, refuse to supply key information, and expect to get a grant. Admittedly we have a representative government (the OVA Board) which has the legal power to make decisions without consulting the membership. But deciding to provide massive (hundreds of thousands of dollars per year) support, even if it is fee for service, without meaningful consultation with the membership, is simply wrong and runs counter to your campaign promises. And consultation with the membership, no matter how broad, cannot be meaningful if the membership lacks key information on which to make a judgement. Sure, the OGC has the right to withhold any information they want, but they do not have the right to expect any sort of financial cooperation if key financial information is withheld.
So what should you do? In order to meet both your campaign promises and your fiduciary duty to Oakmont, you should:
- Notify OGC that no financial support will be forthcoming in 2019. It is too soon for OVA to be able to do a responsible job of evaluating all options. Waiting a year will also allow the OVA Board time to review results of a new reserve study that includes how the East Rec upgrades will be funded, and better estimates for other facility refurbishment projects (Berger, CAC). If waiting a year for the OVA Board to do its fiduciary duty does not work for OGC, then they should be told they will have to look elsewhere for assistance.
- Recuse all Board members who have ever been OGC members or whose spouses have ever been OGC members, in particular including yourself, from all discussions or voting on OGC financial cooperation issues (according to Davis-Stirling, you should leave the room whenever such discussions take place). This should be made mandatory by a vote of the Board; it should not be an individual option.
- Create an OGC Financing Committee , comprised of OVA members who have no connection to OGC, to evaluate the need, means and consequences of financial cooperation with OGC. This committee should be responsible for getting independent, unbiased professional review of legal issues and of complex technical issues, such as the degree to which OVA should accept partial responsibility for storm drain maintenance. It should also work with OGC to provide a financial summary for all of us to review, with an independent audit to assure accuracy. The content of the financial summary should exclude information which OGC is legally or contracturally bound to protect, but it absolutely must provide enough information for OVA members to judge the validity of OGC claims of need.
- Set a timeline for the OGC Financing Committee final report, such that their findings can be reviewed by the OVA membership as well as the Board, in time to guide the 2020 budget process. The charter of this committee should be open enough that their recommendation might be “no support” as well as positive levels of financial cooperation between OVA and OGC.
I will continue to support your efforts to bring civility, fiscal responsibility and transparency to Oakmont governance, but know that the OGC issue could be your undoing if you fail to live up to those promises in dealing with it.
Bruce Bon
Bruce,
Thank you for your brave letter, which clearly, and without any added negativity or anger, sets out the issues that the OVA Board and especially President Steve Spanier must deal with in order to maintain the confidence of the residents of Oakmont and in order to fulfill their legal fiduciary responsibilities.
I hope that do that.
Dues are to support common areas and not for investment or donations to 3rd parties or businesses. Violates Davis Stirling act
Bruce,
Many substantive and insightful and productive points. Thank you.
Thank you Bruce for your valid and thoughtful comments and important suggestions. Particularly like the idea of special committee as I had the same thought. Not everyone wants to see the financials or would even understand them.
Personally, I think no more time should be wasted even considering using OVA dues to support OGC facilities. Not now. Not even in 2019. Should the OGC go bankrupt, that will be an opportunity for OVA to buy the Quail Inn at or below market value. Using OVA dues for their intended purpose, remodeling and maintaining the community facilities, is the fiduciary responsibility of our BOD.
Could the East Course be replaced by housing? That would be in the best interests of the people of Santa Rosa. Since the fires, Santa Rosa residents need homes, not underutilized golf courses. Personally I think the Meadows looks a lot better now than it did as an open field filled with tall grass. Also OVA benefited from the Meadows developer impact fees that fattened our Capital Reserve Fund.
OVA missed out on purchasing the medical office building for a little more than a million dollars. The tiny minority that supported pickleballl on the putting green wanted access to the Benson parking lot so that heavy construction equipment could reach the putting green to build the proposed courts. That is what happens when our OVA BODs allow themselves to be influenced by the wants of tiny minorities of residents rather than having concern for what benefits the majority. How many residents actually play golf on the East Course?
Hopefully our BOD will begin to spend time doing what is best for our own association. With millions in remodeling expenses facing OVA, they should not even consider buying or leasing land from the OGC. That would simply be more land for OVA to maintain and develop. With our own facilities in a deteriorated state, now is not the time for OVA to consider expansion. Now is the time to focus on repairing, maintaining and remodeling our own facilities.
Jeannette my friend, I agree with many of your opinions, but PLEASE stop berating the East Course as some kind of loss-leader, a monetary drag on the club, something that could be discarded (closed or sold) and the OGC’s financial problems would be solved. That is simply not the case. The East course generates revenue. Because it is shorter, the upkeep is less than the Par 72 West course. The OGC/Kemper keeps records of daily play on each course but, according to a former board member, they have never separated the net revenue of the two courses. I wish they would. The point is, the East Course is a unique Par 62 course (that is why they call it “Executive”) but it is a fun test for any golfer – from the short hitters to the scratch players. Plus it offers better scenic views that the West. Next time I play I’ll take a cart and you are invited to ride along and see for yourself.